Legion of the Black: We Don't Belong
by Jacki Thompson
Summary: Shen lives in the city of Arabriga with his mother, father, and his two younger brothers Forner and Theosis. One day he sees a girl sitting in the back kiss a black rosary that is definitely NOT F.E.A.R.'s symbol. She winks at him, and he knows - he KNOWS she meant for him to see it. What was so important to risk getting caught in an act of paganism?
1. Chapter 1

"Let us bow our heads in thankful prayer to F.E.A.R., for their benevolent protection of our small community."

Shen followed the lead of everyone else in the church, bowing his brown curly head to rest it against the pew in front of him. The old woman and her aging husband didn't notice; they were both on their knees too. Shen could hear the old woman whispering in a cracked voice, "F.E.A.R. protect us from sin. F.E.A.R. keep us safe from the rebels." Her husband put his work-worn hand over her shoulder and held her close as he bowed his head in agreement.

Shen's own parents and two other brothers were kneeling with their eyes closed in silent prayer. Well, Forner, the middle brother, was praying. Theosis, his youngest brother, was just pretending. His sparkling blue eye was peeking out from behind clasped hands to roam around the quiet Parish.

Shen's parent's, however, were fervently worshiping their savior. His mother's lips were curved into a smile as she spoke silently to their god and his dad looked completely stripped away from his muscle bound body – weak and powerless against F.E.A.R.'s magnificence.

Suddenly out of nowhere, Shen was angry at F.E.A.R. How dare they make his strong father look like such a weakling? He didn't deserve it! The tears scoring his father's face should be replaced with the blood of his enemies, the tremble in his limbs from awe replaced with the tremble of strained muscles after a battle!

Suddenly, a nudge interrupted his thoughts. It was his mother, her blonde hair catching the warm glow from the candlelight and making it glow like it was angel's hair – or maybe liquid gold.

"_You should be praying."_ She whispered quietly into his ear. Shen looked at her for a moment, feeling a rush of defiance, but he sighed and nodded, turning to face the alter again and bowing his head, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to empty his thoughts. It didn't work – the enveloping darkness behind his lids only made his feelings magnify, as well as every little sound within the church.

A man across the aisle coughed, a staccato overriding the rhythm of the old woman's prayer. Someone dropped a pen, which was followed with a rustle of papers fluttering to the ground. Shen felt the shudder of the person who dropped the supplies when they knelt down to gather them up.

"And now…" It was the Vicar in charge of their Parish, and everyone looked up at him before fixing their eyes on the honey-colored wood of the pew in front of them. "if any of the flock feel the need to confess their sins and come back to the shadows, now is the time to do so."

There was a quiet spell, then the old woman came forward, her feet shuffling on the dark carpet with a _scritch scritch_. She made it to the front of the Parish and bowed her head to the symbol of F.E.A.R. above the alter and announced, loudly and with shame, "I told… my oldest granddaughter that I…. supported her decision to join the rebels."

Shen tensed up, looking at the other members or their Parish. Most of them, except for the very little ones like Theosis, were looking at the old woman with outrage and fear. Theosis, in question, was picking at a splinter on the wooden pew in front of them and was unaware of the chaos of the old woman's proclamation.

The Vicar didn't seem fazed by the old woman, and came forward and put an arm around her as she continued to speak in broken, halting sentences. "She-she told me that she wanted be her own person… and I told her that she should! I… I didn't know what to do! Amborella is my oldest granddaughter! _I love her so much!_" There were no tears, but the Vicar patted her back as the shaking woman made her way back to her seat.

"F.E.A.R. has forgiven you of your sins." He announced, smiling brightly at the tearful grandmother. "They will send a representative to talk to Amborella about her rebellion and the love that is here for her in our Parish and the sinfulness out in the desert."

Shen could see people breathing sighs of relief and nodding along with the Vicar, who was an older man with thinning white hair and a bony drooping face. It was as if he was made of candle wax and had been left somewhere warm for too long. He wore thin glasses perched on the end of his nose and his face radiated kindness with an undertone of something Shen recognized from his stints in the F.E.A.R. correctional facilities: a wild craving for power.

Almost everyone had been to a correctional facility at some point or another, because everyone questions their faith. But Shen had doubts a lot more than anybody else in his family and most likely in his Parish. As such, he was sent to the facilities often. He didn't remember much, but the glint of a man starving for control never left him.

The old woman – Amborella's grandmother – looked reassured and was wiping her eyes (probably trying to take care of the tears before they fell) with a lacy white handkerchief. Her husband was whispering quietly to her and was probably reassuring her of Amborella coming back to the Parish. Either way, Shen couldn't hear what they were saying.

Two men, three women, and one child stepped forward after the display of Amborella's grandmother to confess their sins. The Vicar showered them with guarantees of sins being forgiven. Shen snorted and looked away. His mother didn't catch it thankfully, but the girl across the aisle and a few seats behind them did.

Her hair was dark and straight and caught the light of the sparse candles in the dark Parish in a way that wasn't quite natural. Her eyes were black and sparkled with laughter as she stared at Shen.

Then her eyes flicked forward and it was as if she had never been looking. Shen continued to stare, and watched as the girl took out a rosary of black beads with a symbol on it that definitely _wasn't_ the symbol of F.E.A.R. and kissed it, pressed it against her forehead, then slipped it underneath the collar of her white dress again. He didn't get a chance to see what symbol the rosary had on it, but he was shocked that she would dare do that – and in the middle of a Parish, no less!

The girl's eyes came down to stare at him and suddenly, Shen knew… he _knew_ she had meant for him to see that. But why? Why would she risk being accused of paganism just for him to see her with that rosary? Why couldn't she just have waited until a time when they weren't in the middle of Confession?

She winked and pointed to the clock behind them. It was pointing to nine forty-seven in the morning. Morning was a relative sense of course – the rebels were active during the day, so F.E.A.R. had told their flocks to change their schedules to stay in the dark. As such, Parish now took place just after sunset every other day before everyone went to work or school or whatever.

It was dark in the Parish, and to give it a more spiritual feel, only the minimum number of candles was used. People could see to get around, but it was dark enough that the Mouth of F.E.A.R. could make its way into their midst.

Anyway, the girl pointed to the clock and then flashed one finger at him, then again. One o'clock at night? When it was light out? What would his mom say if she caught him sneaking out? The girl then flashed him a grin again and turned forward and stared with a rapt expression at the F.E.A.R. symbol above the alter – as if she was the most devout follower of F.E.A.R. in the entire Parish.

Shen didn't know what to think. Where did she want to meet? What did she want to know? What would happen–

The Parish rose as one (except for Shen, who was a few seconds late at getting on his feet) and began to chant the Prayer for Deliverance. It was something that everyone learned before they were out of primary; even Theosis was talking along with it in his high-pitched voice with the mispronunciations.

"So dewiver us fwom the webels… Fow they awe the disease seeking to destwoy us." Shen smiled at his adorable little brother and mouthed along with the prayer – he never actually said the words. After the prayer was finished, everyone chorusing "amen", they began to pack up and move out.

Shen turned to look for the dark skinned girl, but she was gone. In retrospect, that's probably why she was sitting near the aisle in the far back row: to make a quick exit. Unsure as to what to do, he took the red candle offered to him by his mother and lit it on one of the candles still flickering in the Parish (the others having been blown out by people opening the doors and a breeze rushing through the Parish). He cupped the tiny flame in his palm and followed his parents out into the crowded street.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Shen awoke that night (the sun was in fact up, but it's all relative) to a knock on his window. At first, he thought that maybe it had just been an aftermath of the dream he had been having where every cup he tried to pick had fallen apart in a tinkling of glass and had turned over to try and go back to sleep. But the knocking persisted, and eventually Shen yawned and turned to look at the window above his desk (which was wedged right next to his bed; working as a bedside table as well as his desk). He almost fell out of his bed when the face of the girl from Parish grinned back at him through the window.

His heartbeat racing, Shen debated. Should he let her and risk being caught with her in his room, or go outside and risk being caught out after curfew? Or should he just tell her to go away and go back to bed? He looked at her and caught sight of the rosary around her neck. Oh, fangdra. He was never going to be able to resist finding out what she had been doing with the rosary.

He flipped his sheets back and unlocked the window, crawling out to sit on the roof beside the girl.

"It's about hisjing time." She huffed. "I thought you would sleep through the end of the world."

Shen wasn't sure what surprised him more: the fact that she had just cursed aloud or the fact that she had found his house.

"But anyway. I expect you have some questions. Call me the Pathfinder."

Shen gave her an extremely skeptical look. "There's no way that your real name."

"True enough, but names are powerful. So you can call me Pathfinder. I'm a Legionnaire."

Huh? "A Legionnaire?"

"Oh, that's right… you're from an inner city. I guess I would be called a 'rebel' here then." Pathfinder made quotes with her fingers around the word 'rebel'.

Shen started, looking around with caution. There was no one about and the street was quiet with only the sound of bugs and the two of them breathing to break the silence. It was too bright in the sun. He was missing sleep for _this_? A meeting with a rebel that might get him admitted to a correctional facility again?

"But we're not _exactly_ rebels." Pathfinder amended. "We're the Legion of the Black. We really just want to be left alone and lead anyone we can out of F.E.A.R.'s grasp."

"But F.E.A.R. protects us!" Shen protested. It was _way_ too hot out here. He was sweating and he pulled off his long sleeve, sitting on the black-tarred roof of his house in sleeping pants and a tank top.

"From what? Your sins? Pfft. Please." Pathfinder flicked her long hair behind her shoulder. "That's just what they want you to think. There's really not as many sins as they say. Truthfully, almost everything is circumstantial. If someone's trying to kill you, it's okay to kill them. It's okay to lie when it's necessary."

Now Shen felt offended. "No, not from our sins. From you! And besides, if they save us from our sins, then we're going to heaven – you're going to hell."

He felt a flicker of pride when Pathfinder's expression soured. "We only attack when provoked. They kill us because we are there! And for your information, we're not going to hell. 'Hell's already all filled up'." She quoted. "That's the Prophet, just so that you know."

Shen was just confused now. "Who's the Prophet?"

"He's our leader. Well, technically I answer to the Deviant, but the Deviant answers to the Prophet. They're the Wild Ones. The Prophet, the Deviant, the Proclaimer, the Mystic, and the Destroyer. Everyone in the Legion answers to one of them. I'm part of the Deviant's kin – his soldiers." Pathfinder stretched out her wrists. On each wrist on the inside, right behind her palm was a tattoo that read 'OUTLAW' in an old-fashioned western print curved like a rainbow.

"You take the sign of a Wild One when you join their kin – there's a ceremony where your General accepts you into their kin and then these show up. It depends on the Wild One, but normally you get more than just the mark: sometimes you'll… change."

"Change… how?" Shen reached out a hand to touch the tanned skin where the markings were. It was smooth and perfectly normal, almost as if she had been born with it.

"Like I said, it depends. The Deviant's kin normally get darker or lighter skin. I used to be as pale as a ghost. And take a look at my eyes."

He dragged his gaze back up to her eyes, which were a deep, dark brown that the sunlight seemed to catch and turn into melted chocolate instead of a suffocating blackness, like they had that morning.

"Would you believe that my eyes used to be blue? I've seen some of the darkest eyes ever turn a deep blue when they join the kin of the Prophet. They get like this… bat symbol on their arms right here." She tapped her right arm about halfway up her forearm. "Just so that you see if them you'll know who you're looking at."

Shen's mind suddenly caught up with what she was saying and he stood up quickly, walking to the edge of the roof and looking across the dirt street to the houses across it. He was silent, as was Pathfinder. Finally, he spoke over the thickness of the hot day and the bugs.

"I never said I was coming with you." It sounded impossibly loud and yet weak and pitiful out in the sunlight.

"You'd better decide quickly, then." Pathfinder sounded almost angry. "Because of her grandmother, I've got to hide Amborella before F.E.A.R. sends someone after her. They'd rather kill us than let us leave. You've got three days to choose. We'll be back then, and you better have picked what side you're on before then."

She stood up, her navy blue dress swishing as she leapt to the tree next to the house – the green washed out by the bright sun and the heat drying out the leaves and grass. Once she was on the ground, Pathfinder sent a glare his way before making her way down the street and around the corner, out of sight. All that was left of the Legionnaire was a plume of dust and the unsettled thoughts swirling through Shen's head.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The next few days led to a very distracted Shen. Forner had given up on talking with him in frustration and Theosis began to monopolize Forner's attention. Meanwhile, Shen locked himself in his room, pretending to be doing work for academy while he pondered Pathfinder's words.

Leaving meant leaving his family behind. Leaving meant hardship and suffering. But leaving also meant freedom from a religion he didn't believe in. It meant he was free to do what he wanted to, without fear of being put into a correctional facility again.

He sighed heavily and wearily, rubbing his brown curly hair with vigor. What would happen to Theosis without him? Forner could take care of him, and nobody would hurt them – it was against F.E.A.R.'s policy to allow violence – or at least he thought it was. Pathfinder had said that they attacked the Legion without provocation. Could she be right?

Shen flopped backwards, staring at the blank ceiling in his bedroom. His parents wouldn't be happy. But he could tell them in a letter… no. He would tell them the night before he left. If he left at all.

There seemed to be no good way out. What would happen to his soul if he went with Pathfinder? He didn't believe in F.E.A.R. as much as he probably should have, but at the same time he _was_ worried about what happened after he dies. What had Pathfinder said? "The pits of Hell are all filled up?" What about heaven? Would he go there?

Shen was sure he wouldn't. Not if he went with the Legion. But he wouldn't go to Hell either, according to the Prophet – whoever that was. Maybe purgatory? That couldn't be too bad.

There was a crash downstairs and Theosis began to cry. He was only four! If Shen left, he wouldn't get to see Theosis grow up. That was his major concern. He didn't particularly want to see his parents grow old or see Forner (who was only two years younger than him) do exactly what he did. Theosis was almost like having his own son, and he was going to miss the little guy. If he left at all. Why was his brain saying he'd already decided that he was going to the murderous rebels?

Two more days before he had to make a final decision.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Shen had failed a test on F.E.A.R. that day. His parents were shocked and decided to have a chat about it; try to find out why he failed. Forner was listening with a scowl on his face, and Theosis played in the living room. Once and a while the tiny blonde would look with disappointment at the group in the kitchen, all of whom were very stoically ignoring him.

"Why didn't you do well in this test? Shen, we studied this together!" His mom asked, seeking answers with concern.

"It's nothing Mom. I'm just not feeling all that well."

This then sent her into a rant about health and Shen's father just stood. Listening. Letting her get out her motherly concern before excusing both of them to talk in private. Their bedroom door closed with the click of the lock, and Forner and Shen stood in the kitchen alone.

Theosis whispered quietly, playing F.E.A.R. with one action figure, then switching to a gravelly, 'evil' voice to play the rebels. For a while, his 'dialogue' was the only noise in the house – their parents must have been whispering, too.

Finally, Forner spoke up. "You should have aced that test." He sounded sullen. Suspicious.

"Well, I didn't." Shen shrugged, ignoring the leap of his heart at his brother's suspicion.

Forner pushed up his glasses, glaring at Shen. "You'd better not be doing what I think you're doing. Or else I'll go straight to F.E.A.R. There's no place for a non-believer here."

So it was not as bad as he thought, but still pretty hisjing bad. "I'm not doubting again, Forner."

"You'd better not be. I love you Shen, but I won't hesitate to call F.E.A.R. It's for your own good, anyway." Shen nodded, somehow managing to feel scolded by his younger brother.

Forner scratched his dirty blonde hair (it was too short to be curly, but had he grown it out, it would be just as curly as Shen's) in a show of extreme awkwardness now that his message had been clearly received.

"Fowner? Can you pway F.E.A.W. wif me?" Theosis asked, holding up the 'rebel' with pleading.

"Sure, Theo." Forner smiled at his brother with warmth that suddenly Shen realized he missed. Forner hadn't looked at him like that since the first time he'd been set to a correctional facility. Had it really been ten years? Forner must have been really devoted to his faith to shun his own brother just for doubting like that.

Shen clomped up the wood stairs to his room, slamming the door behind with enough force that he hoped it echoed throughout the whole house.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The Day arrived. Shen went to academy like every other day, but spent it doodling in the margins of the paper Pathfinder's markings and the things about the Legion he remembered her telling him – the lack of Hell (or rather, the vacancy of Hell being rather nonexistent), the Wild Ones' kin, and the freedom of the wild desert. So what if he made the last part up? Pathfinder seemed like she would say something like that.

It seemed like his heart had made the choice whether he wanted to or not. The Legion was calling to him, and he should have admitted it on day one. He could be safely within the Legion by this point. How far away were they? He had no idea, but hopefully not three days out.

Academy ended with him getting sent home for not paying attention, which lead to another lecture from his disappointed parents over the phone at home. After suffering through his mother's talk, Shen looked around his room. He'd need to take clothes. Hygienic stuff. Food. Food was definitely important.

Taking the bag he used for academy, he began to stuff clothes into it. After filling it up about halfway with clothes (about two and a half outfits), Shen raided the kitchen, filling it almost to the brim with non-perishables. The last thing that went in were things like his hairbrush and soap.

Finally, he sat down to wait for sunrise.

. . . . . . . . . . .

His parents got home from work at around the same time. Forner had been home earlier with Theosis in tow. When he had seen Shen sitting in the living room pretending to nap (he was way too high-strung right now to do that), he had muttered something like, "Typical." Under his breath before going upstairs to sit and do academy work.

Theosis asked if Shen would color with him, and Shen was suddenly hit with the fact that he would most likely never see Theosis again. So he sat down next to the four-year-old and colored a mushroom purple with an aching heart.

It hurt to know that he and Theosis would never sit and color or play pretend together again after that night. They'd never play ball in the dirt road, or go to Parish and Shen keep Theosis busy during the Vicar's speech.

At the table for dinner, Shen sat next to Theosis and kept a smile on his face, but it felt cracked, like old plaster. His throat hurt and Theosis' antics (which his mother frowned upon) made it ache even worse. His heart felt like it was being clenched between two fists, wrung out like a towel. No tears – Shen almost never cried. But he felt like if he lost control, he _would_ cry and never be able to stop.

But thankfully, dinner was soon over and Shen whispered to his parents that he needed to talk to them after they put Theosis to bed. His mother nodded, a flicker of worry crossing her pretty face and his father's lips tightened as he nodded also.

While he sat in his room waiting, Shen stared at the ceiling, watching as the sun began to creep into the room. It threw interesting orange and gold streaks across the door. The bag he packed sat by the door, ready to be picked up at any second and almost mocking him.

What if his parents forbid him to go? They wouldn't have enough time to get a locksmith or anything to keep him in his room, but what about the front door? They could certainly keep him from getting out that way. Shen sat up and looked out the window. Hmm… Pathfinder had gotten in through the window. Would his parents think to look there? Certainly he could at least get his bag outside so that his parents wouldn't suspect him to be leaving for good if he left the house without any luggage if they somehow managed to keep him in his room.

He snatched the bag up, climbed out the window and dropped it in the brown bushes next to the house. It landed with a soft crunch – obvious to anyone looking, but your eyes would travel right by it if you weren't expecting the bag to be around.

Clambering quickly back through the window, Shen shut, locked, and pulled the curtains in his room and lit a candle. Now it would probably not occur to his parents that he was planning on sneaking out through the window.

His door swung open, and Shen jumped guiltily. But it was just his parents. They looked solemn – probably didn't want anything he told them to seem like a joke from the get-go.

"Hey, Mom…Dad. Um, could you sit on the bed, please? This–" Shen laughed slightly, staring at the ceiling and running a hand through his hair. "this is… hard to tell you."

His mother gave him a concerned look, and his father asked, "Is this about academy? If you need to, we can get a tutor–"

"No. It's not about academy. Well, it kind of is. What I mean is…" Shen was getting flustered and babbling. It was definitely worrying his parents now.

"What is it? Shen… honey… you can tell us. We won't get mad." His mother sounded sincere, but Shen doubted that she would keep her promise. Joining the rebels… Fangdra. She was going to flip.

"What I want to tell you is… um…" Shen looked at the door, floor, wall, anywhere that was not his parents. His stomach fluttered, adding to the choking sensation in his throat and clenching of his heart. "I… I'm…. I am…" _Just spit it out!_ He growled to himself. But it was as if his mind was stuttering over the phrase like an old broken CD.

"I'm leaving… to join the Legion of the Black?" It came out as a question rather than a statement, but Shen was watching his parents' expressions. They looked confused, and his mother sat forward and touched his arm softly.

"That's great, honey! But… why was it so hard to tell us that?" She didn't know what it was. Of course she didn't know what the Legion was. It was just harder to tell her now than it was before.

"Because… that's, um, that's not what it's called here. They're… um…. They're called the rebels." The last part was almost whispered. But they definitely heard it. A sharp intake of breath from his mother, a hardening expression from his father. They both stayed seated though, which was a plus. Shen didn't know what he would have done if they had gotten up and started yelling at him.

Shen laughed softly. Hysterically. "I'm leaving soon. There was someone who told me that they could take me out to the Legion." No need to tell them he was leaving in a few hours. They would completely flip rarthna if they knew that.

"Shen… why? They're killers." His mom's voice was soft. Almost whispered. The glow of the candle hit her face and illuminated it in a soft brown color. Her face was contorted, torn between horror and concern. Shen's stomach twisted in his chest. He didn't want to have this conversation. He wanted to stay.

But he _needed_ to go. He _needed_ the freedom that Pathfinder had promised. But what would his parents understand of that?

"Mom… there's a reason I've been in and out of correctional facilities for so long. I don't belong here. This is _your_ faith. Not mine. The Legion is where I need to be."

"But _why_? Shen… please. Reconsider. They'll _kill_ you!" His mother's face was now stuck in heart-wrenching sorrow. The expression was almost enough to make him stay, but the pull of the wild was stronger.

"I'm leaving, Mom. I promise – I'll come back if it doesn't… work out." His father, who had been silent this entire time, put a hand on his shoulder. His hand was big and rough. Strong and comforting.

"Go."

What? "Dad?"

"Dalhon?" His mother whispered, mixing her face into a cocktail of disbelief and despair.

"Go. My brother – your uncle – Lankon is out there. Find him. Tell him I'm alright." Shen had never even heard of Uncle Lankon, but he nodded fervently.

"I'm not saying I approve, Shen. But you're old enough now to decide on your own. If Lankon is still alive… well. I can be the better man and allow you to make your own decisions." His father slapped his back and left, nearly dragging a shell-shocked Martagon with him.

Shen followed them out the door and into the hall, giving his mother a kiss and a hug to his dad. "I'm leaving tonight. While the sun's up."

Dalhon nodded. "I hope you make it, son."

Martagon threw her arms around her son, hugging him so tightly that Shen was sure that he cracked a rib. "There's nothing I can do to change your mind?"

"…I'm sorry." Shen murmured, hugging her back and giving her another peck before heading back to his room. Forner was standing in front of his room, staring. He smiled once at Shen before disappearing back within his room with barely a whisper as the door slid shut.

Shen took a deep breath and stepped out the window. He slid down the roof and jumped the rest of the way, doing a somersault when he landed to keep from hurting his ankles. The bag was right where he left it, and he picked it, slinging it over his shoulder. He sat down underneath the tree and tilted his head back, staring at the clear deep blue sky with the feeling of a prison sentence weighing on his shoulders.

. . . . . . . . . . .

"Well, you certainly are relaxed." The snarky comment made it's way through his brain and Shen groaned, blinking in the bright sunlight. "But it's not like we're not running from a religion that has its priests try to kill us or anything like that."

The silhouettes of the two girls against the sun made him squint. Sitting up, Shen yawned and stretched, his muscles pulling in a way that felt way too good. Finally, he looked again at the girls, only to find a totally inappropriate comment winding its way out of his mouth.

"What are you wearing?"

Pathfinder was wearing what was basically a scrap of black cloth wound around her torso, not covering very far down her legs at all and not covering her shoulders, either. There was some sort of mask sitting on her forehead (Shen had a sneaking suspicion it was a devil mask) and she was bare foot, standing on the blistering dirt road with barely an eyelash to betray that it hurt.

"It's my Legionnaire stuff, alright? There's a different set of rules out there, and since I'm a part of the Legion, I'm expected to dress like them. You're just starting out, so you get a free pass. But you're expected to ditch those clothes as soon as possible."

"Um… okay." Shen looked at the girl next to Pathfinder. Her hair was long and blonde, curling into princess-like ringlets all the way down her back. She was wearing a black jacket that had most likely been stolen from some kind of contraband warehouse or something, because he was sure it was against F.E.A.R.'s dress code. Her feet were clad in boots that were hopefully good for walking in, and she was wearing a white tank top (probably just an undershirt that she had turned into an outer piece).

Her eyes were a green-brown color – like the dying trees, and she was rolling her them with exasperation at Shen.

"Right." Pathfinder shifted her bag onto the other shoulder. "Amborella, meet Shen. Shen, Amborella. Now get to walking. We've got about two days' walk until we get to the last known Legion location."

"What if they're not there?" Amborella asked. Shen picked up his bag and started walking, taking Pathfinder's right flank with Amborella on the other side of their guide.

"Then they'll have left a message for all of the Deviant's kin to find." Pathfinder's bare feet were already covered with dust, making them much lighter than the rest of her well-tanned body. They scuffed the dry dirt, kicking up little plumes that rose into the air like fireworks with each step.

For some reason, Pathfinder had messed up her hair. Not like the slight messing up that comes from a day out running – it was as if she had purposefully ran her hands or brush through her hair, making the black locks stick up from her head like some kind of deranged animal. She had also pushed the mask down over her face, making her virtually unrecognizable. It didn't cover her mouth (it didn't even cover her nose; just had a bird of prey's beak that extended over it), and her lips were pursed in a worried way.

"What's wrong?" Shen asked, struggling to keep up with Pathfinder's long and hurried gait. Both of the girls were taller than him – Amborella being the tallest, but Pathfinder with the quickest pace. Even Amborella was walking/jogging to keep up with the Legionnaire.

Pathfinder looked behind her to the rapidly diminishing town. "I don't know. I just have a feeling like we're being followed."

"That's a bad thing, right?" Shen asked, staring at the city. It looked so small. That was where he'd always lived. He'd gone to academy there for almost ten years. Forner, Theosis, and he had all been born at the same sanatorium. He'd been committed to the Parish there and watched Forner give his vows, too. Theosis was too young, and now he never would get to see him grow old enough to take them.

Amborella was looking back too, her voice soft as she said, "My grandmother turned me in to F.E.A.R."

Pathfinder began walking again, but stopped when she saw the two residents of the city still staring at the brown and black rooftops with sadness and regret.

"Look, Amborella… I'm sorry. My parents' were both turned in by their families, too. But we've just got to move past it. C'mon! You're our little bulletproof angel, right?"

Shen looked at Amborella, trying to see the analogy in the tall girl. Yes, she did look like an angel with her curly blonde hair and petite face. Her lips were very curved nicely and red from her biting down on them, trying to keep the tears from flowing. Shen remembered her barbed tongue from earlier, and he had to admit that she had seemed pretty unbreakable then, but now? He wasn't so sure.

"I'll never get to see my big sister again." Amborella's was even softer now, a mere whisper on the desert wind. The dust swirled around their legs again, teasing them to turn back. It would be so easy to just go home right now. Forner wouldn't have to know that he went to the Legion. Theosis and Shen would never have to be apart again. His parents wouldn't have to say goodbye forever.

Just walk back. He would be back before daytime… before the moon would rise. Shen looked over his shoulder back towards the desert. Nothing but tumbleweeds, cactus, and old wood. There was nothing out there that he could see. Pathfinder said they were out there, and he trusted her.

He looked again at their guide. She had pulled the mask off her face and it was sitting on her forehead, casting shadows onto her tanned face and wild hair. Her brown-black eyes glittered in the hot wilderness sun, scrutinizing them with a predator's gaze.

Her wraparound black cloth… dress…thing was wrapped above her breasts, but not clipped onto her shoulders. The hem barely covered the top of her thighs, but it wasn't sexy as much as she looked dangerous. It _was_ a little stirring to see Pathfinder wearing such a rebellious outfit, but at the same time Shen was sure she could tear his arm off.

"If you want to go home, this is your last chance." She called, her voice almost lost in the wind, even though she was standing right next to them.

Amborella slid her fingers into Shen's. He looked down at their hands in shock, but seeing her hopeful face, he couldn't bring himself to push her away. They both needed each other's support to keep on walking. He needed somebody else going through the same distress he was going through to be right next to him.

Amborella took a shuddering breath, before turning around and walking away from the city, Shen following his clasped hand without complaint, following the girl and guide into further into the wilderness.


	2. Chapter 2

Shen put down his bag with a groan. Amborella followed his lead, plopping on the ground with a thump that signaled exhaustion. Pathfinder was rifling through her bag, still standing.

Shen thought personally that the guide must be super-human to keep on going like she did throughout the day. They only stopped when one of her two companions said they needed to, and she seemed like she could just keep on going on like that for days. She probably could, too.

The sun had gone down over the desert, leaving the sand cooling rapidly and the sky a dark blue with pink and orange streaks left by the sun's brush. Right now Forner would be up, getting ready for academy as his parents made breakfast and chatted over the table about work and religion. Nobody really had friends… work and religion were really all they had to talk about.

Something hit Shen in the head and he looked up. Pathfinder was holding a loaf of bread in her hand. It was holy bread. Oh, F.E.A.R. She stole holy bread. Pathfinder was in _so_ much trouble. The tomes of F.E.A.R. said that anyone caught with the holy bread was to have their hands cut off. Shen had never seen it happen, but then again, he'd never seen anyone not of his religion in person before. Strange things only talked about were coming true all over the place.

"We can't eat that!" Amborella sounded scandalized. "It's holy bread!"

"Oh, really?" Pathfinder took a big bite of it, chewing it slowly and thoughtfully. Then she swallowed and said, "Huh. F.E.A.R. didn't show up. Guess it's good."

Amborella was the first one to reach for the bread, though they both took several moments evaluating their convictions versus their new life. She took it and ripped it in half, tearing in with her teeth in a way that somehow still managed to look polite and delicate even with the purely animalistic way she was eating. She must have been starving.

Shen was, too, and so when he saw the girls tearing away, he watched for a second. Then two. Finally, he tossed away the thoughts of F.E.A.R.'s laws and reached for one of the loaves. Pathfinder handed it to him without comment, which he was thankful for. He bit into the thick-crusted bread, tearing at it.

It wasn't warm, and it probably wasn't sanitary after being in Pathfinder's bag all day, but it was food and 'lunch' (it was around midnight, when the sun was at its peak and if the moon was overhead, they would have been eating lunch, so he was calling it lunch) was hours ago. The bread tasted fine, and Shen finished it quickly, washing it down with water from his first bottle. It was halfway full, and he had two others with him. Hopefully it would last until they made it to the Legion.

He sloshed the water around, trying to get a more accurate picture of how much was left.

"You've got plenty." Pathfinder swigged her water too. "We're only a day and a half out now. A bottle a day is the best for both your body and conserving your water. You barely drank half of yours today, so I want you to drink more tomorrow."

"Yes, Mom." Amborella muttered.

Pathfinder heard and turned to the girl, pointing a finger at her. "Look, I'm responsible if you die out here. And I can't carry you if you pass out from dehydration, so shut the hisj up and drink your water."

Amborella made a face, but she took a sip before putting her water bottle back in her bag. The tall girl's pretty blonde hair was turning a dull dust color from the sand that had blown into it during the day, and the curls were becoming a tangled mess.

Shen had curly hair too, so he probably didn't look so hot, either. Dust had gotten in everything throughout the day. The sun was almost set and the moon was just visible on the horizon, large and looming. The wind had turned cold with the setting of the sun, and the stars looked like F.E.A.R. had jabbed holes in the sky with a needle, letting in pure white light wherever they tore the cloth of the sky.

"Aren't we going to light a fire?" Amborella asked.

Pathfinder shook her head, taking two blankets out of her bag and giving one to each of the two teenagers. "It'll attract unwanted attention. Plus…" She looked back the way they had come. Or, at least, Shen thought it was. The desert had him all turned around, but Pathfinder seemed to know exactly where they were.

"I still feel like someone's following us." She unsheathed something from a leather carrying case that for some reason Shen hadn't noticed had been strapped to her pack. It was a dagger, made out of something that looked suspiciously like what he thought bone would look like. It was simple, curved like a horn with only one carving on it that he couldn't make out and beads wrapped around the leather handle. Still, he didn't know why he was surprised that Pathfinder was carrying a knife. Everything out here seemed a lot more dangerous than he had ever imagined – mostly because everything he imagined was just the rebels sitting out in the desert waiting for F.E.A.R. to lighten up before attacking a city and destroying it.

Pathfinder grinned, shoving him lightly. "Get some sleep. I'll watch."

Seeing as arguing would be useless when Pathfinder was the one holding a dagger and actually knew how to use it, it seemed as if he'd have to sleep. He lay down on the ground, rested his head on the ground, and passed out.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Shen wasn't sure what woke him up, but suddenly he was wide awake and staring at Amborella's sleeping form near him. Her eyes were closed and her curling blonde hair had halfway fell across her face, obscuring it from view and shifting slightly with every breath she took. It was peaceful, but Shen was suddenly reminded of holding Theosis while he read from the tomes until the toddler fell asleep.

He sat up quickly, looking around for Pathfinder. He saw her sitting on a small rock, staring out at the desert. The whole landscape was extremely blue underneath the night sky, and the stars and planets overhead were bright, like candles. The moon was huge – a crescent bigger than Pathfinder's dagger and hanging over their heads like a death sentence.

He spotted Pathfinder sitting on a small round rock a few feet away from the camp, a bright glowing ember held in her hand. He walked over, and she touched the coal to her lips and then brought it back down before he stood next to her, looking out at the still scenery.

The sand was a deep cobalt color, and the cactuses in the distance, dotting the desert, were a shade of liberty blue that was nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the desert. But Shen could see it, and internally laughed at the natural proclamation of his freedom. The rock that Pathfinder was sitting on was a deep Egyptian blue under the moonlight, and the girl herself glowed with the health that seemed to enter her as soon as the city was out of sight. She touched her lips with the ember again, but Shen was close enough now to see that she was just sucking on the end of a stick that was lit on the opposite side.

Was this another one of the weird religious stuff that went on in the desert, like her rosary? Shen didn't know, but when he sat down on the cold sand next to her and Pathfinder asked, "What are you doing up?" he didn't have the guts to ask her about the practices of the desert.

"I just… woke up and didn't want to fall asleep again."

"You should. We've still got a way to go before we get home."

"Where's… home?"

Pathfinder smiled softly, sucking on the stick again. She breathed out and said in a loving voice, "It's wherever the Deviant is. We follow him, or if needed one of the other Wild Ones. Sometimes he has to leave to meet up with them and since having his kin with him would only slow him down, we go later. Maybe a day or so."

"Why would he need to leave early?"

"For the New Year's Celebration… raids… the Prophet has a vision… a Deviant brings back some new Legionnaires…" She winked at him, the only source of light the red glow from her stick.

"How do they choose… which of the leaders is _your_ leader?"

"Honestly? You talk to them."

"That's it?"

"You were expecting a sage to tell you who you were destined for? We don't have a religion out here. But yeah. When you first join the Legion, you talk with the Wild Ones alone. Then you and that Wild One – the one that you choose – do like this ceremony to welcome you into their kin." Shen noticed that Pathfinder was rubbing her wrist with her other hand, but the guide didn't seem to notice. "Of course, I was born out here, so when I was twelve I got to choose."

"You were born out here?"

"Does it surprise you? Yeah, I've been out here for… twenty-two years now? Been helping you new Legionnaires get out here for seven."

"You're twenty-two?" She didn't look much older than him (and Shen was seventeen).

"People out here age differently. My parents look like my siblings and the Wild Ones haven't aged for forty years."

"How do you know that?"

"My grandpa told me they look exactly the same as when he made it out here, right after the bombs dropped. You know, World War Two?"

Shen knew about World War Two. At the very end of the war, America decided to drop a bomb on Japan, a nuke. It was a huge feat of science tht would have been recorded in the history books had it worked. Unfortunately, they miscalculated. They ended up wiping out ninety percent of the world's population.

F.E.A.R. came in afterwards and became the saviors of the remaining people, saving them from the rebels – the people that were destroying the civilization the other survivors had worked so hard to build.

"My grandpa was one of the first to come out here. He's a Proclaimer."

"What are your parents?"

"Dad's a Mystic and Mom's a Destroyer." Pathfinder laughed. "Yeah, Grandpa isn't actually my grandpa anyway – he took in Mom and Dad when they fled, and they named me after him when I was born. I think they were Bonded pretty early on."

So much of that statement made no sense that Shen didn't know what to say.

"Of course, the Wild Ones can tell you about it, too. But Grandpa's the sweetest guy you'll ever meet."

"What's he like?"

"He remembers what the world used to look like. Before the bombs. He tells me that F.E.A.R. wasn't the only religion… he used to have a religion, too, before Grandma died in the bombs. Now, well, he's one of the most powerful Proclaimers besides the Proclaimer himself!"

"So… everyone underneath a Wild One is that Wild One?"

"Kind of. I'm _a_ Deviant, but _the_ Deviant is a Wild One. Dad is _a_ Mystic, but he in under_ the_ Mystic."

Shen's mind was overheating, so he just gave her a helpless look. Pathfinder laughed out loud – a harsh sound echoing across the quiet desert. It sounded like she laughed often, but the desert had rejected her happiness. Maybe joy was something that it couldn't comprehend. After a few minutes, she stopped laughing and sucked on her stick again.

"You'll catch on eventually."

"I hope so." Shen was afraid. Afraid of showing emotion. Afraid of what awaited them out in the harsh environment. Afraid of what Pathfinder would think of him if he told her what was going on in his head.

"No, really. I've seen new Legionnaires become full on members in under a moon – a month." She amended. "But right now, get some rest. We've got a long journey still ahead of us, and you'll need it."

"What about you?" Shen asked worriedly.

"I'll be fine until we get to the Legion. Then I can rest."

. . . . . . . . . . .

The day started out early, with a quick breakfast of preserved fruits and water before setting out before it got too hot. The air was still cool, but the yellow sun was rising over the mountains surrounding the desert and Shen was sure that it would be hot once it got over the rise and had a bit of time.

The sky above was a clear blue; darker around the horizon and lighter (almost white) overhead. No clouds to be seen, and certainly not a wind to stir the air.

Pathfinder had been right when she said she would be fine. Again, the two teenagers struggled to keep up, but Shen did notice she had slowed down. Only slightly, but she definitely was walking slower. This wasn't because she was feeling more at ease, oh no. She in fact glanced back even more than the day before.

He hefted his bag to his other arm, listening as Amborella talked on about her life back home.

Then she got to her grandmother and faltered, falling silent. The scuffing of their feet on the sand was the only sound for a time, before Amborella looked up, drawing in a shuddering breath.

"I've got to let go of them, don't I?"

Pathfinder gave a sympathetic look to her. "Yes."

"I thought as much." Amborella fell silent and they continued on.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The next morning was much like every day up until that one: walking on the flat sand with no other sights and no one talked. Everyone (at least Amborella and Shen himself) was caught up in his or her own thoughts.

It took an interesting turn when Pathfinder led them towards a canyon cut into the ground. It rose out of the ground like two great columns of stone, like F.E.A.R. itself had carved through it with a knife, leaving gouge marks and an almost completely straight path through. There were rocks and ledges, sure, but Shen could see for a long way down the gorge.

"What are we doing in here?" Shen asked, his voice bouncing off the walls and echoing like a hollow shell. He didn't like the look of the place at al, but at least the walls were tall enough that it cast the whole canyon into gray shadow. It was cooler in there than out in the desert at least.

"We need to go through here to reach the Legion." Pathfinder forged on ahead, her steps slowing even more. She could say anything she liked, but Shen could tell that Pathfinder was exhausted. Her feet, caked with sand and grime, dragged and even the shadows from the high canyon walls didn't seem to revive her.

She took a sip of water and pulled off her mask for a second, revealing her pale, sweaty face. She wiped her forehead before settling the mask back over her face.

Suddenly, Pathfinder whipped around, staring the mile or so straight back through to the cave entrance. Her hair, clotted with dirt and grime, swung like a pendulum.

Shen and Amborella turned to look too, but the only thing Shen could see was a cloud of black dust rising.

"Hide." Pathfinder's voice was deadly quiet. "Hide now. Whatever happens, don't come out until I say so."

Amborella opened her mouth to retort, but Pathfinder drew her dagger, staring at the black dust with fear and anger. It glittered in her eyes in a dangerous and frightening cocktail.

Shen could tell she was being serious and was suddenly struck with the heart-pounding adrenaline that put his mind into over-drive and made him hyper-aware. His heartbeat pounded in his mind like a million drums and he was breating fast – too fast, but he couldn't stop.

Shen grabbed Amborella's hand and helped her climb into a hole in the rock wall where they could see Pathfinder, but Pathfinder couldn't see them. It scraped at his hands and feet, cold almost to pain, and the space was so small that Amborella was sitting on his lap and he had to look around her limp, greasy blonde locks to see Pathfinder at all. He could smell the other girl and… wow. She stunk. They probably both did, but the scent bothered him much less than how loud his breathing was. Whatever Pathfinder was so afraid of would probably finish them off with a snap of its fingers if it got anywhere near where the two were hiding.

Shen watched as the black-haired woman looked around. She grasped a rock and began to heave herself up onto a plateau of rock that was about the size of Shen's Parish's floor (that is, big, but not huge). Her chest was heaving when she rolled onto the top, but she didn't stop to rest. She turned to face the entrance of the canyon again, but nothing was there. The dust was gone, and the sun was back out.

But suddenly a _swish_ was heard and there was a tall cloaked figure in front of her. Amborella gasped, and Shen had to bite on his hand to keep from screaming.

It was black and clothed – or else its skin just naturally looked like fabric, because he couldn't see and seams. It was human-shaped, but much taller than any human Shen had ever seen. The horns, curled like two whisps of smoke from a burning city, seemed to add even more height to the monster. Its back was to them, but it held a long gold staff embroidered with the symbol of F.E.A.R. on the end. Pathfinder's face was too far away to see, but her tense and ready stance was curled and woven with terror.

There was no dialogue, no build-up to the battle. Pathfinder let out a war cry and lunged at the thing, but it _swished_ away and was behind her in a puff of black mist. The guide whirled, driving her knife home, but nothing was there. She stumbled forward, her strength behind the strike too much and throwing her off balance. The thing reappeared next to her, out of reach of her knife, and swung the staff at her.

Pathfinder twisted desperately, but she was too slow. It knocked her over easily, laying the woman onto the ground with almost no physical exertion displayed. Shen didn't see the knife leave her hand, but he heard the harsh clatter as it hit the ground. Amborella had his hand grasped in so tight a grip, he thought he might lose a hand. That was alright; he was squeezing just as tightly back.

Pathfinder had told them to stay, and that's what they were doing. But it was _so hard_ just to sit back and do nothing. Now the woman was staring up at the tall figure. She put one hand behind her as if to scoot away from the creature, but the staff came down right on her hand.

Her scream echoed through the canyon and both Shen and Amborella turned away for a second. He felt his face screw up. He never wanted to hear another sound like that ever again.

But when he turned back forwards to watch, Shen didn't have enough warning. The staff hit home, and a guttural screech rang out. It felt like it was loud enough to cleave the walls of the gully.


	3. Chapter 3

The creature was gone. It had been gone for an hour or so, but Shen was too scared to go out there and see what it had done to Pathfinder. The possibility that she was still alive had occurred to him, but he had seen her be impaled on the end of the monster's spear. He didn't know much about wounds, but that seemed pretty fatal.

Amborella had been crying into his shirt, leaving stains on his shirt and her fear was making him even more terrified than he had been before. What if it was still out there, waiting for them? The moment they stepped out into the open it would grab him and rip out his heart – literally. And he would watch it with vision black as his heart stuttered to a stop seconds after he died.

No. That was gross and disgusting and totally possible. But all he needed to just get out there and see if Pathfinder was alive and if so, if he could help her. Hopefully he wouldn't get his head ripped off by some undead creature.

Amborella was sitting on top of him, so first he carefully helped out of the hole and climbed down next to her. The girl immediately attached herself to him, and Shen felt his heart jump. He took several deep breaths before climbing down the rock. He crossed the path and set a foot on the rock, preparing to climb up to the plateau where Pathfinder was lying. His fingers curled around the sheer wall and the rock bit into his skin with an unforgiving sting.

A hand on his shoulder stopped him. Amborella was gazing at him with red-rimmed eyes. "She's – she's not up there. I watched. The thing it-it pushed her off. She's over here." She led him quietly over to where their guide lay.

Shen's gut wrenched and Amborella began to breathe unevenly again. There was a pool of blood where Pathfinder's stomach was supposed to be and it was spreading. Her arms and legs were at unnatural angles where she had fallen. There was blood on her face, too; Shen supposed she had hit her head when she had been pushed as well.

It was sickening and ghastly – Shen wanted to throw up. Amborella looked pale and white. Her eyes were red from crying and she was still stuttering for breath, but she leaned down and started to cut away at the material around the wound in Pathfinder's stomach with the dagger the guide had had with her on the plateau of rock (Shen had no idea where Amborella had found it). Once the fabric was all cut away, Amborella wrapped it around the wound – or tried. She wasn't strong enough to lift the woman's body.

"Shen, you need to help me. She's dying… we _need_ to find the Legion soon." Shen, despite the part of his mind that wanted to go and hide in a dark room and rock back and forth, sobbing uncontrollably, knelt down next to the blonde-haired girl and placed his hands underneath the Legionnaire's back, slick with blood, while Amborella made a makeshift bandage to try and stop the bleeding.

The tall girl's hands were shaking and she was biting down so hard on her lip that it split, a single line of blood winding down her chin. She turned and wiped her cut lip on the white fabric of her tank top (not so white now after wearing it for two and a half days out in the desert without a shower to speak of), leaving a smear of brownish-red. But Amborella went on, her green-brown eyes less red now and she was so focused that she didn't even notice when Shen put a hand on her shoulder to steady the girl. She had been kneeling in such a way that she had almost fallen over when she moved.

Finally, Amborella stood up, taking her shirt and tearing a strip off the bottom to wrap around Pathfinder's right hand, which was mangled almost beyond recognition after the creature's staff had struck it. It looked like a piece of meat that Shen's mother put into soups. He again swallowed his revulsion.

_ "Don't lose your lunch. This isn't as bad as it looks."_

Finally, _finally_, Amborella finished, tying a secure knot around the woman's hand before searching out their bags. She hefted all three onto her shoulders. Shen thought she looked rather like a pack mule.

"Come on. We've got to find the Legion soon. I'm not strong enough to carry her, so I'll take your bag instead." Her eyes glittered with determination and – Shen was beginning to recognize it everywhere now – fear. His parents as he left. Pathfinder in the face of the monster. His own in everything. Amborella's now about Pathfinder's life.

He stooped to pick up the guide. She hung limply in his arms as he struggled to rise. Once he was standing up right, he breathed in once. Twice. He could do this. She wasn't too heavy yet.

They set off, following the canyon. Shen knew that neither of them could make it far on their own. They needed Pathfinder's expertise and extra carrying power to get where they needed to go. Amborella was struggling with the bags; they were weighing her down and digging into her shoulders, even though she was wearing her leather jacket to protect herself.

They were going to die out here. They couldn't find their way back home and without Pathfinder they'd never find the Legion. She might wake up, but Shen doubted with her injuries she would stay conscious or be able to walk fast enough to get somewhere where they could get assistance.

While Shen was strong, he wasn't strong enough to carry a human for several hours. Already the Legionnaire was growing awkward and unwieldy to carry, as limp as she was. If Shen hadn't felt her soft and shallow breaths against his chest, he would have thought he was carrying a corpse. She hadn't stopped bleeding (Shen thought it might be because they were moving her around), but it had slowed slightly. There was still hope.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The sun was setting and they had just reached the end of the canyon when they saw the two black figures approaching. There was nowhere to hide. The gorge on this side was a smooth as glass and for several feet (Shen didn't know whether miles would be accurate or not) behind them there were no niches in the walls. And anyway, Pathfinder wouldn't fit in the holes in her state.

Shen had had to stop for an hour or two to regain his strength. The guide had gotten heavier and heavier as time went on. But they couldn't stop. Not when Amborella slipped and hurt her ankle, not when Shen had very nearly dropped Pathfinder. They couldn't stop because she would probably die if they didn't find help soon.

Her head flopped back in his arms, her mask gone – put away in the bag so that they could tend as well as they could the wound on her head. Her eyes fluttered with feverish rapidity, and her breathing had moved to shallow and struggling.

Even if they reached the Legion, would it be soon enough? Pathfinder didn't seem like she would be able to make it…. Were they just wasting their energy trying to get her to a place where they could help her? Were they just wasting their _time_ trying to drag the woman along with them? Certainly if they left her now the figures would probably kill the injured Legionnaire.

"Okay, okay." Amborella muttered, as if trying to wrap her head around the idea of a fight. She drew the dagger from Pathfinder's pack with the sound of fabric tearing as the jagged blade caught against its holster. It looked awkward in Amborella's hands, but she held it in front of her determinedly anyway. There was nowhere to hide, so really they could fight or they could run.

Running meant leaving Pathfinder behind and even then, the two figures were getting closer rapidly. They probably wouldn't be able to outrun them even if they tried. Fighting would most certainly end up with them dying too, but at least they could try and protect Pathfinder.

Gently, he rolled the heavy, solid body of the guide onto the ground and looked around. A stone was about the only thing he could choose to protect himself, so he picked up a round-ish one with a nasty jagged edge on one side to bash the people coming towards them. But they weren't going to be there by sunset – only after. What if F.E.A.R. was stronger at night? It would be much better to face up to them during the last daylight hours if possible.

"Do you think we should… get closer?" He asked. "You know, to lead them away from Pathfinder?"

Amborella, her eyes wide and reflecting the orange of the sun, nodded. Her stringy blonde hair was damp with sweat and the golden light shining through it gave her hair the appearance of long-forgotten gold in a dragon's cave: dirty from the breath of the monster but pure and beautiful underneath the ugliness caused by its owner.

They began walking. Nothing was said between them; they hadn't talked for much of the day. The only sounds between them had been the scuffing sound of their boots on the hard, cracked earth of the canyon (there wasn't any sand inside the gorge) and their labored breathing as they struggled with the heavy burdens on their shoulders and the terror of the creature urging their tired feet faster.

Now they walked slower. The empty sky had darkened to a blue and the stars begun to appear above them as they walked. Finally, they got close enough to the two figures to shout.

Amborella decided to make use of the closing distance. "We're looking for the Legion of the Black!" She shouted as loud as she could.

Shen jumped, attempting to clamp a hand over her mouth. "Are you insane?" He hissed. "What if that's F.E.A.R.?"

"And what if it's the Legion?" She retorted, fighting back and slapping his hand away. "We're already dead if it is F.E.A.R. There's no way that that we could get away if a Legionnaire couldn't. If it's the Legion, they can give us assistance!"

She turned back to the desert and shouted again. "Please! We need help!"

The figures had continued their slow walk after the first call of Amborella's, but now they moved faster, almost running. In no time at all they were close enough to be recognized, though Shen had no idea who they were.

One was a tall man in a jacket with only one sleeve and his hair cut short…ish… in the front and swooped over one side with the back long and pushed forward over his shoulders. The other was a shorter, more muscled man with short, spiky hair and black mud splattered across his face. Thankfully, they were definitely not F.E.A.R., but they were both kind of glowering at the two runaways in a way that made Shen feel as if he was being cut open and examined underneath their gazes.

Amborella was already speaking. "Our guide! Pathfinder! She's… A thing… it attacked us! It got Pathfinder and – and I think…" The two men pushed past Amborella and Shen and began running back the way the refugees come.

The two teens followed behind them, but the Legionnaires were much fitter and hadn't been carrying around three full packs and a twenty-something woman all day. Soon the men were far out ahead of the runaways. The kids caught up eventually, once the two had stopped and were examining the body of Pathfinder with focused and expert (at least more expert than any two city-dwellers) eyes.

One – the one with the short spiky hair – sat back on his heels to hold out a hand in a gesture of greeting. "I'm Asclepius, kin of the Proclaimer."

"Amborella." The girl shook his hand. "And that's Shen. We're from Arabriga in the east." She pronounced their home city's name with a roll of the tongue on the 'r's.

"You made good time." Asclepius commented, leaning back over Pathfinder. He undid the wrappings and hissed with dismay when he could see the wound. The man sitting next to him took out a small vial and a (hopefully clean) black cloth. Asclepius poured some of whatever was in the bottle onto the gaping hole in Pathfinder's torso and the woman twisted, her features twisting in pain.

"Well, Pathfinder kept us going. She thought something was following us." Amborella credited. Pathfinder's body went limp again. Asclepius began to dab and pat at the wound carefully with the cloth in his hand, wiping at the blood. More was still seeping, but it was much slower now than when Amborella had first bandaged her up.

"And of course she was right." Asclepius sighed, moving onto her hand and unwrapping the material there too. He didn't wince at the bloodied meat that had once been Pathfinder's hand, and his own hands moved quickly to pour more of the liquid from the vial on the mutilated hand. "Thank F.E.A.R. that those creatures are impatient. It could have followed you all the way back to the Prophet's camp."

"Do you know what they are?" Shen asked.

Asclepius shook his head. The other man was simply watching now, standing over the patient and healer with an impassive expression. Asclepius finished wiping up the smears from Pathfinder's ruined hand and began to gently wrap it again. "They're unknown. Nobody's ever managed to defeat one of those things, and they don't bleed either. I doubt even the Prophet could find out."

"No, I doubt I could either." The other man looked up, his face grim. His voice was surprising – whatever Shen had expected the rather feminine man to sound like, a rumbling growl was simply not what his vocal chords should have produced.

"_You're _the Prophet?" Amborella was looking at him with incredulity. Shen wasn't sure why he was surprised, either. Maybe he had expected for the Wild Ones to be a bit more like F.E.A.R. Unreachable and only around for ceremonial activities, not walking around meeting the little guys like him and Amborella. He doubted that Asclepius was hugely important, since he used his real name. Hadn't Pathfinder said that that's why the Wild Ones didn't use their real names?

Maybe that was a bit of a shallow outlook, but Pathfinder didn't use her real name. Was she important?

"You were expecting some crippled old man with a long beard and a cane?" The Prophet asked sardonically. He slid his hands underneath Pathfinder and stood with only the slightest bit of effort invading his semi-emotionless face. Pathfinder lay limply in his grasp like a roll of cloth.

But the Prophet seemed to be having a lot less trouble carrying the guide than when Shen had carried Pathfinder and suddenly Shen felt a little jealous of the tall, thin Wild One. He picked up his bag, slinging it across his shoulder.

Asclepius picked up the pack Pathfinder had been carrying and gave the other to Amborella. "We'd better get going – the Prophet's camp isn't too far from here." For some reason, as well as carrying Pathfinder, the Prophet was still holding onto the pack he'd had when he'd walked out to them. Maybe he liked stretching himself.

"The Wild Ones don't all live together?" Amborella asked, falling into step with the shorter man.

He laughed. "F.E.A.R. would come down on all of us if we all lived in the same place. Naw, most of the Legion stays with their kin. But there's always one of each Legionnaire in each camp. At the Prophet's camp, there's always a Deviant, a Proclaimer – that's me – a Destroyer, and a Mystic. Then the rest of his kin besides the ones staying with the other camps."

"Do they come together often?" Amborella queried. She'd taken a length of cord and tied her hair back to keep it off her neck and out of her face, and her face glowed blue in the moonlight. There was a glint in her eyes as the stars caught in them: curiosity diluted with anxiety. Distress that maybe it still wasn't safe out here even with the Legion.

"Yep." Asclepius nodded. "The New Year's Day celebration, the claiming ceremonies, and just whenever the Wild Ones need to talk."

"We're all very close." The Prophet added, his deep voice rumbling. It seemed to be taking no toll on him to carry Pathfinder, and it made the jealousy prick just a bit further into Shen's mind. Was he just a wimp? Or was this Wild One so perfect that he'd have to show Shen up in everything he did? It slipped Shen's mind (conveniently) that this was the first thing that both of them had done and Shen was a young teenager from the city, while the Prophet was a semi-mystical being from the desert and had probably been exercising inadvertently for a long time.

Running from F.E.A.R. was bound to build up some strong muscles if the creature that chased them was anything to go on; it was _fast_. So fast that even Pathfinder had been powerless against it. She'd held her own, not winning or losing for a bit but the thing was just so fast that it seemed like it was inevitable for her to be defeated.

Amborella was now questioning the Prophet about each of the Wild Ones, including himself. She seemed almost overly eager to decide which kin she would have without ever having seen them. Her questions ranged from how friendly they were to how much she would change when she became part of their kin. The Prophet was rather unforthcoming, only answering yes or no or not answering at all if it was asking for a description of some aspect of Legion life. Amborella seemed undeterred and her chatter was soon directed to Asclepius, who tried to answer them as well as he could, though it soon became apparent that he didn't know very much about any of the Wild Ones, either.

Shen couldn't help it – he asked, "What about the Deviant?"

"Ah, one of the most sought after Wild Ones!" Asclepius nodded. "I gather Pathfinder explained a little to you about the Deviant?"

"No." Shen replied. Amborella, however, nodded.

"Deviants are in charge of going into the cities to find new Legionnaires and are known for being rather… promiscuous." Asclepius smiled fondly. "They are well-liked for the most part, though. Most understand that normally Deviants only stick around for a little before moving on. One of my closest friends is a Deviant and, well, let's just say that I know much more about him than I would have liked to once upon a time."

"I knew about the recruitment or whatever you want to call it." Amborella divulged. "But I didn't know about… that second part." Could it be that the girl blushed? It was hard to tell under the desert night sky, but Shen could very easily hear the embarrassment in her voice.

"Well, you'll soon learn more about the Deviant. Probably more than you ever wanted to know, either." Asclepius was amused by Amborella's shyness – Shen could hear it in his voice. And his white teeth were stretched into a wide smile that not even the dim moonlight could hide.

"Okay." Amborella sounded small and unsure about learning more about the Deviants at all, and _that_ made Asclepius burst out laughing.

"I'm just teasin' ya princess." He slapped a hand on her shoulder with friendly laughter still bubbling from him. "I'm not sayin' you won't have an… uncomfortable encounter at some point, but you can grow to enjoy it, too. Deviants and Destroyers are hisjin' crazy. They're the life of the party."

"Which Wild One is your favorite?" Amborella asked.

"Aw, why'd ya have to ask me that in front of the Prophet?" Asclepius pouted. "The Proclaimer, o' course! I'm one o' his kin, aren't I?"

"Oh, I guess so." Amborella sounded a bit sheepish. "I guess I didn't think."

"It's fine, princess." Asclepius assured her. "Ya don't know our way of life just yet. Fangdra, I didn't even know the name of the Wild Ones until after I got out here."

"You're from the cities, too?" Shen asked, interest peaked.

"Yup. Born and bred in Qalyub in the north. F.E.A.R. had a death grip on my city an' my guide is the riskiest son-of-a-Vicar I've ever met. Never would have made it out o' there if it weren't for Granatum. Went by the Guide up there. Took me, Quain, an' Mackenzii out of there just in time. Quain snuck out in the middle of Parish and almost lost an arm to one o' the creatures."

"More of F.E.A.R. than in the east?" Amborella asked. "A creature actually _caught up to us_ if you haven't noticed." She didn't sound angry, just kind of unbelieving that it was more religious (Shen corrected himself to worse. How could F.E.A.R. try and kill Pathfinder? Probably because the rebels had killed followers of F.E.A.R., too.) in Qalyub that Arabriga.

"Princess, how many days did you and Mister Stone-Faced spend in Arabriga before your guide pulled ya out?" Was Asclepius talking about Shen?

"Me? Three days after I agreed. Shen was the variable, according to Pathfinder – he had to decide before we left."

"Sweetheart, I hate to burst yah bubble, but Mackenzii decided the day that we left that she was comin' too an' still had to slip out of her house before her parents saw."

"I had to do that, too!" Amborella protested. "My grandmother turned me in to F.E.A.R.!"

"Quain left the day he decided to join the Legion an' met Guide by accident on the way out, sweetheart. He was bleedin' out too. It's dangerous to be in tha north princess. Maybe it's dangerous in the east too, but three days of hiding an' ya weren't found? Up north yah'd have been found within five or six hours. Give or take two hours. Might as well accept it now: yah're in hot water with F.E.A.R. now, an' there's no going back."


End file.
